Chetcuti secures third place in 100m heats but fails to qualify for semi-finals

19-year-old Andrew Chetcuti took third place in the 100m freestyle heats, registering a time of 51.67s.

He narrowly missed the second place when he made the 50m mark in 24.68s - making the split in second place -before being pipped into third place by the Guatemalan Kevin Avila Soto.

He also broke his own record of 51.98s in the 2011 Games of the Small States of Europe in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Chetcuti also holds national records in the 50m and 200m freestyle.

Overall, Chetcuti ranked 39 out of the 56 swimmers who performed in the heats at the London 2012 Olympics today, missing the semi-finals of the last 16 swimmers which all qualified with times of less than 49 seconds.

The freestyle stroke in swimming is the fastest. All races start with heats. Swimmers are seeded according to FINA rules, based on the final entry lists. These seedings are used to determine the heat each swimmer starts in - the top seeds are placed in different heats. Seedings are also used to determine the lane each athlete swim in - the higher the seeding, the closer to the centre lanes of the pool.

The top 16 swimmers from the heats progress to the semi-finals, and the top eight then advance to the final. As in the heats, the swimmers' seedings are used to decide which semi-final they swim in, and which lane they are allocated.

If there is a tie for the last qualifying position, a swim-off decides which athlete progresses.

On Friday, Nicola Sammut - who holds the national 50m freestyle record - will be competing in the heats for the 50m freestyle for women.